Today I received my new oil pump from Calas HP in Sweden. After 8 years of research, planning, testing and machining, the pump modifications I made failed horribly. I got less than 2 miles down the road and lost oil pressure. Crankcase internal pressures were so high that oil oozed out of everyplace possible including James bead seal cylinder base gaskets. About the same time as all this, I saw the reports on the Calas feed pump and scavenge pump upgrade. I stopped what I was doing and saved my pennies until I could afford to order them. Everything looks really nice and I am looking forward to getting it working. I will update this with installation and testing reports as things progress.

Not really sure of the cause, yet. I suspect breather timing and possibly a sheared drive pin in the pump. After I saw the CHP pump, I knew that it was the way to go, and just parked the bike until I could get one. Now I will take things apart and make it all better.

Started teardown yesterday. The oil filter was full of metal, so it looks like a complete disassembly for cleanup is in order. I should have it all apart today. The shavings in the oil filter appear to be all aluminum, so I think my oil pump modification ate itself.

The plot thickens. The cam chest has a large amount of shavings in it. The oil pump shows no evidence of the kind of damage that would produce the amount of shavings present. The cylinders and pistons are scored, but no chunks missing from the pistons.

It seems that all the crud in my engine was not shredded aluminum as it appeared to be. It is Devcon liquid aluminum epoxy. I used it to plug the hole in the right case where the cylinder stud holes break into the case when I drilled it for top cylinder oiling. The plug apparently loosened with age and the oil pressure pushed it out, causing a loss of oil pressure and filling the cam chest with shredded Devcon.

The new plan is to plug off the top cylinder oiler, groove the pinion bushing for full time oiling and rely on the increased output capability of the CHP pump to get enough oil to the cylinders. I am also saving for new S&S cylinders to replace my old tired sleeved cylinders. Despite everything I have tried, they do not appear to be able to handle the heat well any more.

jib,There was no damage to the oil pump at all, so yes I think that the modifications are still viable. The two issues that caused the most problems were clearance problems between the frame and the extended return pump, and timing the breather because the sleeve is from a sportster and the timing mark is different. I decided to go with the CHP pump because it is just a much better idea and a much cleaner and easier installation. Even if I had not had the latest problems, I would eventually have made the change.

After more inspection, I found that the cause of this problem was that I used the pourable Devcon that remains flexible. I chose this because I thought it would be better than the very hard stuff because of the expansion rate of the aluminum. Apparently the oil pressure behind it was enough to push it out like a wine cork after you shake the bottle. I had this on the road previously with a stock pump with no problem. The increased pressure of the pump modifications was more than it could handle.

I was able to get enough good threads in the hole in the case where the stud holes break through using a 7/16-20 tap to use a set screw to plug the hole. I will loctite and stake the set screw to retain it.

The rod bearings look OK, but had a lot of Devcon smashed into everything, taking up all the clearances. Cleaning and reassembly starts this weekend.